Doppler’s Earbuds Are Way More Than Just Wireless Headphones

Doppler

Doppler Labs, the company behind the straight-outta-science-fiction earbuds that let you control the volume of the world, has a new product out today. It’s called Here One, and you guessed it, it’s another set of wireless earbuds. But these aren’t just for tweaking the sound mix at a concert, or tuning out subway noise. Here One is all that, plus everything you’d expect from a standard set of wireless headphones, and then even more stuff on top of that.

The Here One buds will cost $299 when they ship in November. This company’s never been short on ambition or confidence: Doppler calls them “the last thing you’ll ever put in your ears.” (Sorry, Q-tips.) The Here Ones are, at the simplest level, a set of wireless headphones. They can stream music, take calls, interact with Siri and Google Now, and the like. Normally I wouldn’t spell these things out for a pair of headphones, but Doppler’s previous Here buds couldn’t do those things. What they could do, and what the Here One buds supposedly do even better, is let you filter and change the noise of the real world. Using the companion app, you can change frequency response, tune out things like baby screams and train screeches, or turn up the volume of the people in front of you. There are multiple directional mics inside the Here One buds, so the sound editing becomes even more powerful.

Doppler

Doppler really loves the idea that its products work for absolutely everyone, no matter their situation. “We are not a medical device,” says Doppler CEO Noah Kraft. “But we do think that there is this crazy false binary, that people either can hear or can’t hear.” When you first set up your Here Ones, you’ll go through a customization process, so the software can learn the particulars of your ears and hearing and thus attenuate sound specifically for you.

Once you’re up and running, you’ll also be able to mix real-world sound with whatever you’re listening to, in what Doppler calls “layered listening.” Instead of jamming headphones into your ears to drown out the world, you can have it sound as though your music’s playing from a speaker a few feet away. You can hear Chance The Rapper and whoever you’re talking to, or listen to Radiolab on your bike and still hear the cars flying by.

Doppler’s only one of a number of companies working on truly wireless headphones. If the last buds are any indication, the Here Ones will be among the most comfortable and usable of the lot. But don’t ask Doppler to be proud of that. “The interesting engineering is not the wireless headphones,” says executive chairman Fritz Lanman. “That’s the table-stakes stuff.” He’s right: soon enough, everyone from Apple to Samsung to Microsoft is going to try and sell you wireless earbuds. Doppler’s trying to go way beyond that, to change the way users hear altogether. To put a computer in their ears, and see what happens next.

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A Beautiful Tripod That Doubles as a Selfie Stick Because 2017

MeFOTO

Tripods are not flashy things. They exist only to help you get just the right shot, like an overlooked and uncredited photographer’s assistant. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Enter the MeFoto Backpacker Air: a tripod that is equally stylish and versatile.

The top piece pops off and doubles as a selfie stick.

The $125 Backpacker Air comes in seven glorious colors, each with a glossy shine that makes the pigments pop. You’d be hard-pressed to find another tripod with such a range of colors, let alone one with a metallic lilac color option. For those who prefer the drab look, the Backpacker Air comes in black and titanium too.

Pretty as they are, MeFoto’s tripods offer more than just looks. The Backpacker Air has all the stabilizing features of larger tripods, but it shrinks to a flashlight-sized 10.4 inches when folded up. It also weighs just two pounds, making it light enough to toss in your backpack and tote around all day. Fully extended, it stretches out to 59.5 inches tall, so it can snap an eye-level shot.

A true sign of the times, the top piece pops off and doubles as a selfie stick. It’s the perfect tripod for the 21st century photographer. But it won’t up your Instagram game. That’s on you.

This Funky New Lamp Looks Like Tron And Talks Like Alexa

GE’s new Alexa-powered lamp.GE

On the first day, God said, “let there be light!” God waited, but nothing happened. Then God remembered. “Alexa,” God bellowed, “let there be light!” The disc-shaped lamp on God’s bedside table glowed blue, as Amazon’s voice assistant heard and then processed his command. A moment later, a white light came on in its place. There was light, and God saw that it was good.

Don’t quote me on it, but I’m pretty sure that’s how that story goes.

Amazon’s plan for Alexa has always been bigger than the Echo, or the Echo Dot, or the Echo Tap. Amazon, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and others, imagines its virtual assistant as an omnipresent part of your life, always within earshot and ready to do your bidding. The shortest way there seems to be to embed the assistant into the objects that surround you: the fridge, the thermostat, the TV. And the lights. Amazon’s working with GE to build the “C by GE table lamp with Alexa,” which is not a cool name but a very cool product.

The C lamp (let’s just call it that, shall we?) itself is a thin circle of LEDs, which GE says will be about 14-18 inches tall and about 13 inches in diameter. It looks like a slightly slimmer Tron disc held vertically in place, or like the lamp version of Dyson’s bladeless fans. It’s definitely more dramatic than your average nightlight. The lamp’s base holds all the Alexa power, a speaker and microphone that give you access to all the same features as the Echo. (It also needs to be plugged in like the Echo.)

The product was designed by Richard Clarkson, who has a history of wild ideas about light sources. His Cloud speaker puts on a mini-thunderstorm on command, and the Saber tube is both a light and a music visualizer. Similarly, the C lamp lights up blue to let you know Alexa is working, on the inner side of the circle.

Cool as it is, it’s just a prototype for now. GE says it’s coming next year, as part of a new line of connected home products. And it signals a shift: as all these ordinary objects start to become smart, their makers have an opportunity to re-think how they work, and how they look. And maybe to make them a little less ordinary in the process.

Google Music Taps Big Data to Build a Robot DJ Mind-Reader

Google

Other than maybe the NSA, nobody knows more about you than Google. It’s got a read on where you are, what you’re doing, what you’re thinking and watching and searching for and chatting with your friends about. Which means nobody should be better equipped to soundtrack every second of your life than Google Play Music. Starting today, the company’s taking full advantage of its smarts to deliver you the sounds you want, when you want them. All you have to do is press play.

Next time you open Google Play Music on any device, the first thing you’ll see is a list of playlists you might like, plus a short description for why the app made any given selection. If you’re at work, and it’s raining, maybe you get some ambient piano to help you focus the afternoon away. Just got home, pouring some wine? Sunset music. Friday night, you’re at a bar? EDM all night. It’s a bit like Google Now, the predictive feed of everything you probably want to know about right now, except fully focused on music. Think of it as a super-smart, hyper-personalized set of radio station presets. Just open the app, tap one, and go.

To do all this, the Play Music team is tapping into the full Google Data Machine for the first time. It’s choosing playlists by looking at the music you’ve listened to before, of course, but also your search history, your YouTube plays, even what’s in your email and calendar. It considers that data alongside things like time of day, location (a bar is different from a library is different from your office), the weather, and more. So you like classical at work, but you need a boost because it’s raining and you’ve been in meetings all day, plus it’s almost time to get to the gym? Play Music might show you Epic Movie Scores, followed by your favorite workout jams.

Google thinks that it has something like a complete picture of your life at all times. And it knows enough about music to know what you might want to hear as a result.

That contextual awareness for tunes has been the long-time goal of Elias Roman, the lead product manager for Google Play Music. He’s been working on it ever since his days at Songza, which Google acquired in 2014. And as Google has programmed more mood- and moment-based playlists, and added more diverse content like podcasts, Play Music been creeping toward smarter recommendations. But now, with the full power of Google’s data and algorithms finally at his back, Roman says that his goal is for you to hit the play button on the very first thing on your home screen, every single time.

Anything less means Google’s machine-learning tools need to get a little smarter, a little sharper. “We want it to feel as easy as radio,” he tells me, showing off the Instrumental Beatles Covers playlist that shows up at the top of his own feed. (Good music to work to, he says.) Of course, you can still manage your library, make your own playlists, or search for whatever you want to listen to, but Roman wants Google to do the work for you.

Music personalization is clearly the next task for every streaming service. But where Spotify’s trying to break down your music taste into its many component parts, then assemble playlists you’ll love, Google’s going one step further. It’s not just trying to say “here’s some music you’ll like,” but “here’s the song you need right now.” It’s a bold gambit: music taste can be finicky, and there’s nothing worse than when you press play and hear the exact wrong thing. Plus, you don’t always want the same things at the same time, right? Algorithms can’t account for mood. Though Roman says they can, at least sort of. Color me skeptical.

Roman is confident that because Google knows so much about your online life, Play Music can at least be right a lot more than it’s wrong. That could mean finally combining the simplicity and just-press-play nature of the radio with your own music taste. And doing it not once a week, or every morning, but every second of every day. Because everyone’s life could use an epic soundtrack.

VR Headset Makes All Your iPhone Videos 3-D

The Elsewhere frames.Elsewhere

The Elsewhere headset looks like something an old-timey doctor might wear. A precursor to bifocals, maybe, or an early surgical microscope. The $50 pair of adjustable lenses clamp to your iPhone. Your lens purchase also unlocks the Elsewhere iOS app. Load up the app, clamp your phone to the goggle thingies, and press the lenses to your face. Voila! 3-D video on your phone!

Wendellen Li and Aza Raskin, a former Mozilla and Songza exec, call it “a breakthrough in perception” that can “turn anything into VR.” VR is a big buzzword right now, so forgive them. Elsewhere is more like 3-D, and it really does work with anything. It re-formats photos and videos on your camera roll to appear three dimensional. Raskin calls the underlying tech “technomancy,” but you also can call it a modern stereoscope. He also mentions steganography, which is a way of concealing one image or file inside another, and claims he can use motion and other data within a video to grab far more information from it than your camera app does.

Whatever Elsewhere does, the effect is pretty cool. I sat in the lobby of a fancy San Francisco hotel looking around slack-jawed. You can adjust the contrast of the image with a swipe of your finger, which makes the field of depth more or less pronounced. You can zoom, which can make you feel either like you’re surrounded by a video (that’s when it feels most like VR) or that you’re Eleven in Stranger Things, standing in the dark nothingness of the Upside Down, looking at something miles away. At one point Li showed us a YouTube video, on a MacBook, which we watched through our iPhone cameras, and viewed through the Elsewhere headset. The depth effect still worked.

Elsewhere’s not trying to be VR the way Google or Oculus want to be VR. Li and Raskin call the headset a “project,” not a startup, and tell a long story about wanting to create a different way of seeing the world. For $50, it takes all the content you already have, and makes it feel richer and deeper. In that sense, it’s almost like a View-Master for the iPhone age. It’s fun, and that’s all it’s meant to be.

Amazon’s Bringing Alexa to Its Super-Cheap Tablets

The many colors of the new Amazon Fire HD 8.Amazon

Here’s a simple tablet buying guide. If you can afford it, buy an iPad. If you can’t or don’t want to drop that kind of coin, buy an Amazon Fire HD. It doesn’t have the cool computer-like features the iPad does, nor does it support a stylus, but if you’re looking for a way to watch movies and play games you can’t beat the Fire tablets. Nor can you beat the price tag. For instance: the new Fire HD 8, a super-durable slate with an 8-inch screen and the latest version of Amazon’s Fire OS, costs a grand total of $90. It’s less expensive than Apple’s Pencil stylus, never mind the tablet it writes on.

If you’ve been looking for a cheap living room tablet to use as a controller for your smart home, this is the one.

The HD 8’s best feature will be Alexa, which Amazon says is going to be integrated “in the coming months.” (More buying advice: wait until then to get one, because “in the coming months” can mean literally anything.) Once the voice assistant arrives, you’ll be able to long-press the Fire’s home button and get access to everything you’d find on an Echo or Tap. Control your music, add stuff to your shopping list, make the robot read to you, do whatever else you and Alexa do together. If you’ve been looking for a cheap living room tablet to use as a controller for your smart home, this is the one.

Otherwise, the Fire HD 8 is just another middling tablet. It comes in four colors, and Amazon’s selling protective cases in the same colors. Its specs are…fine. 1280 x 800 display: fine, not great. Quad-core processor: probably enough for what you’re up to. 12 hour battery: great! The camera won’t change your life, and neither will Amazon’s still-weird take on Android. But if you’re a reader, or a viewer, and especially if you’re a Prime member, every Fire tablet is a treasure trove of stuff to check out.

Alexa’s coming to Amazon’s other tablets, too, so if you’re really hoping to save some coin you can pick up a $50 Fire. If you’ve been wanting to see what Alexa’s all about, that’s the cheapest way ever to do so. But the Fire HD 8 is a much better device, for not that much more money. And don’t forget: you can buy five of them for the price of the iPad Mini. And they both play Netflix pretty well.

Bragi’s New Earphones Are Perfect for the iPhone 7, Probably

Bragi

If Tim Cook doesn’t get on stage and announce a new iPhone that is decidedly, one hundred percent, bet-yer-bottom-dollar devoid of a headphone jack, a lot of companies are going to look pretty silly. Everyone’s been thirstily announcing their own wireless earbuds over the last few weeks, from Samsung to Bose to Jabra, and now Bragi’s gone and made its announcement in Cupertino. On Labor Day. Bragi’s new in-ear headphones, bizarrely called The Headphone, are in theory a perfect companion to your new supposedly wireless smartphone.

The Headphone headphones (I mean, this name, come on) are a simplified version of the Bragi Dash. The Dash is full of wild ambition about being a computer in your ears and terminology like “smart hearable,” but The Headphone is just…headphones. Two totally wireless buds, one with three small buttons for controlling playback. You can use them for music, phone calls, Siri, and everything else you’d do with headphones not called Headphone. They connect to your phone via Bluetooth, and Bragi says they’ll last for six hours before needing to go back in the charging case.

A few of Bragi’s more futuristic ideas made their way into The Headphone, like “audio transparency,” which lets you allow some ambient sound in even while you wear the headphones. In general, though, it’s a much simpler device, at a much more stomachable price: $119 for pre-orders, and $149 once it’s on sale. That’s less than half the price of the Dash.

The Dash still feels a little futuristic, which is in part a kind way of saying all the best things about it don’t work very well so far. But the biggest problem we had in testing those buds was that they just didn’t stay connected very well, which turns out to be a big downside for wireless headphones. Much of Bragi’s software work has focused on connectivity over the last few months, and the company swears it’s better now. If that’s actually true, and if Apple killing the headphone jack causes enough pain for enough users, Bragi’s rush to announce something might have been a smart move. Assuming, of course, it can stand out among the Bluetooth headphone tidal wave cresting over Best Buys everywhere.

The Best iPhone Camera Add-On Just Learned a Ton of New Tricks

DxO

Point-and-shoot cameras are dead. Those Android-powered Nikons? Kaput. GoPros, well, depends how much you wakeboard. For most people, in most situations, smartphones are the beginning and end of a photography toolkit. And for those who want better pictures than an iPhone can muster on its own, accessories like the DxO One balance quality and convenience, augmenting a smartphone’s camera without getting too much in the way. Today, the DxO One gets even more useful—in even more places.

No company has enhanced the iPhone’s camera better than DxO, longtime maker of high-end photo software, and more recent camera manufacturer. The DxO One is a $500 palm-sized camera with a one-inch, 20-megapixel sensor as good as any point-and-shoot. It’s also an accessory that plugs into an iPhone’s Lightning port, uses your phone as a viewfinder, and dumps its gorgeous shots right into your Photos app for you to filter at will. Now, the company’s announcing a huge software update to the One that gives it wireless capabilities, and a line of accessories thats let you take the One places you’d never dare to bring your phone.

Every DxO One the company has shipped so far had a wireless chip inside it—it just wasn’t activated. Now it’s being turned on. With version 2.0 of the camera’s software, you can pair the camera to your phone via Wi-Fi just by plugging it in, skipping all the stupid direct-connection configuration (unless you’re in the woods and there’s no other network, in which case configuration it is). You can use your phone as a remote viewfinder for perfectly framed selfies, or mount the camera for long exposures away from your phone’s bright lights and moving parts. You can control a few settings on the camera itself, like switching from video to photo, but most fiddling still happens in the app. The real difference is just in the places you can fit the camera now—anywhere a deck of cards could go, the One can.

DxO would really like you to think of the One as kind of a GoPro for still shots. Sure, the GoPro shoots stills, but its super-wide fisheye lens doesn’t quite do its subjects justice. Using the One’s new Outdoor Shell, which comes in two models and starts at $50—a splash-proof one for taking on the boat, the other basically meant for deep-sea diving—you’ll be able to take more normal-looking photos and videos anywhere you can think of. There’s even a mount on the shell that will attach the One to most places you’d stick a GoPro.

There are a few other new accessories in the DxO lineup, like a simple stand, and a pouch that’s meant to attach to your belt just like you holstered a pager 20 years ago. But it’s the combination of wireless shooting and ruggedized housing that’s most exciting. It makes the DxO One a partner for your phone, rather than a parasite. Your phone can stay on shore while you stomp around in the water, or in your pocket while you carve down the mountain. DxO is already thinking about and working on integration with live-streaming video apps, too, which would be even cooler.

It’s the best of a point-and-shoot, a GoPro, and an iPhone, in a single package. And all the biggest upgrade costs is the time it takes to wait out a software update.

The Huawei Honor 8 Is Proof You’re Paying Too Much for Phones

Huawei

A giant conglomerate released a new phone this week. It has outrageous specs, nice design, some funky new camera tech, and a bunch of bizarre ideas about software. So far, there are two companies that fit the description—Samsung and Huawei. Here’s where the narratives differ: The one we’re talking about only costs $400. And you’ve probably never for one second considered Huawei in your phone-buying decisions. Silly you.

Huawei’s new device, the Honor 8 (there have been many other Honors before), is every bit the spec monster smartphone. Glassy, colorful design; 12-megapixel camera, plus a second sensor just for good measure; ultra-fast processor and four gigs of RAM; fingerprint sensor that doubles as a clickable shortcut key; latest version of Android; lots of storage, with room to add more. In most practical ways, it’s not that far off from Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 7, or other Android phones like the new Moto Z. The only thing the Honor 8 is missing is the absurdly high (and VR-friendly) screen resolution, but you know what else it’s missing? $400 on the price tag.

Globally, Huawei’s the third-biggest smartphone seller. Only Apple and Samsung sell more phones. But the company’s hardly made a dent in the US, because most people still flock to carrier stores every two years to wait in line and sign stacks of paperwork just to pay way too much for a new phone. The Honor 8 won’t be in a Verizon store, and it won’t come on a contract. It’s just $400 (or $450 with more storage), click buy, end of transaction. That’s how it’s so cheap, by the way—turns out if you don’t have to pay AT&T to carry and market your phone, or pay rent on retail stores, you can sell your phone for a lot less. Of course, there are definitely things you get for your extra money, like Samsung’s extra design flourish and superior camera. But the gap is vanishing.

The $400 smartphone has become a truly exceptional beast. The Honor 8’s just the latest entrant into a group that already includes the OnePlus 3, the Nextbit Robin, the Xiaomi Mi 5, the ZTE Axon 7, the iPhone SE, the Alcatel Idol 4S (which looks a lot like the Honor 8), and more. You’ve probably never heard of most of them, which is the problem—they don’t have the marketing budget, because they’re not overcharging you for their phones. Truth is, you can get a great phone for much less, all the way down to $200 or so, but right now the price for a truly great smartphone is $400. Anything above that, you’re paying for retail stores and Lil’ Wayne commercials. So maybe next time you’re shopping for a phone, don’t just roll down to your carrier store. Just use your current phone to go online and buy your next one.

Soylent’s New Creation Is Coffee and Breakfast in a Bottle

Soylent

As soon as you wake up you’re already late. You snoozed again, three times this time, and now your meeting starts in exactly the time it’ll take you to put on shoes, leap in the car, and put the pedal to the floor all the way to the office. So you don’t eat breakfast. Or worse, you scarf down a donut that you’ll feel in your gut and wear on your shirt for the rest of the day. But maybe tomorrow, Soylent hopes, you’ll grab a Coffiest instead.

Coffiest is Soylent’s newest creation, the latest in its line of meal-in-a-bottle products. Like regular Soylent, it’s meant to give you a broad nutritional base, basically taking all those parts of the “complete breakfast” you’d see in a 1990s cereal commercial and cramming them into Soylent’s standard 400 kcal bottle.

A bottle of Coffiest also has 150mg of caffeine, which isn’t actually all that much—more than in a small cup of diner coffee but less than half what you’ll get from a Grande Pike at Starbucks. And just for good measure, Coffiest also includes 75mg of L-Theanine, a supposedly more even-keeled energy supplement that some people swear by even though the scientific evidence isn’t necessarily overwhelming. All together, it’s a 400-calorie meal for about $3.10 a bottle. We haven’t tried it ourselves, but given what we know about Soylent and coffee, Coffiest probably tastes like caffeinated Cheerios. And, let’s be honest here, you’re gonna fart a lot the first few times you try it.

The idea for Coffiest has been brewing (sorry) at Soylent for a while. There’s a big community of Soylent users sharing recipes and ideas on Reddit and elsewhere, and one of the most popular ideas was adding espresso shots, coffee powder, or coffee extract into Soylent 2.0 to give it an extra kick. Even people at Soylent were doing it. So with a little caffeine and a little cocoa powder, it became a new thing.

It’s like it says on the label: While not intended to replace every meal, Soylent can replace any meal. WIRED’s own Joe Brown, at whose desk you’ll always find a Soylent box or twelve, says that “I don’t drink Soylent in place of delicious food, I drink it in place of bad food—because it’s better than take-out.” Or, in the case of Coffiest, it’s better than a Boston cream. It’s a quick, healthy alternative to a drive-thru when you don’t have time for anything else.

Pocket Casts Is the Podcast App Every iPhone User Needs

Pocket Casts 6.0 for iPhone.Shifty Jelly

It’s time to stop using Apple’s Podcasts app. Yeah, it’s nice that it comes pre-loaded on your iPhone—but so does Apple Maps, and if you use that you’ll probably end up driving into a river. If you’re exploring the weird, wide, wonderful world of Internet audio, you need something better.

There are lots of better somethings, no matter what platform you use. But a brand-new update to Pocket Casts makes it hands-down the best iPhone podcasts app, not to mention the best overall service for people who want to podcast from all manner of different devices. The new version for iOS, Pocket Casts 6.0, brings the app—which was great for a long time, and has kind of languished the last couple of years—into full-fledged modernity. It’s now really easy to find new podcasts to listen to, sort through the ones you already have, and more. Pocket Casts keeps lists of episodes you’ve already started, ones you’ve downloaded but not listened to (which is handy for clearing space on your phone), and more.

Version 6.0 borrows a few great features from other podcast apps, like automatic silence-trimming and voice-boosting. It has all the fiddly bits podcastheads will love, like chapter markers, show notes, a running queue for uninterrupted listening, and support for 3D Touch. For everyone else, it’s just a super-simple grid of show icons. There are still a couple of small things missing, like Overcast’s awesome ability to download a single episode without subscribing to an entire show, but Pocket Casts has just about everything you could want.

The app costs $6 in the App Store, but it’s worth every penny. It looks great on iPhone and iPad, it’s really fast, and the company behind it swears the next update won’t take so long. You can sync and listen to your podcasts on Android and the web, too, and even Windows Phone in case you work for Microsoft. It’s time you took off the iTunes training wheels and found out what a real podcasting app looks like. Oh, and pro tip: turn on the dark theme. It’s great.

You Can Finally Control Your Android TV With Your iPhone

WIRED

If you bought a Sony or Sharp TV from the past couple of years and you have an iPhone, you’ve got yourself a new way to navigate your smartwares. At long last, Google’s Android TV Remote app is now available in the iOS App Store. It replicates the functionality of the same app for Android, which has been available for years.

The most useful function of the app is its double-duty microphone/keyboard feature

The remote-control app for Android TV devices isn’t all that full-featured—it’s essentially just an app version of the plastic remote included with the Google Nexus Player. Regardless, it’s a handy backup clicker or a back-from-the-dead use case for an old iPod Touch. You’ve got your D-pad for navigating menus. Got that home button right there, too. Back button? Check. Even has an icon on there for a-playin’ and a-pausin’, and you can turn the whole screen into a touchpad like some kind of weirdo.

But the most useful function of the app is its double-duty microphone/keyboard feature. You can use your phone as a mouthpiece for Android TV’s excellent voice search (hopefully Siri won’t get jealous). The app one-ups the Nexus remote by letting you input text with your phone’s touchscreen keyboard. Plus, it communicates to your TV or set-top device over Wi-Fi, so you don’t need a line-of-sight connection. And yo, it’s free.

A Single App That’ll Wrangle Your Millions of Messengers

Franz

Way back in the Mesozoic Era of the Internet, which was approximately 2009, maintaining your status as an Internet Socialite required a deft understanding of a multi-faceted messaging ecosystem. You obviously had to be logged into AIM, with just the right away message that told your real friends you were still nearby (and you better not skimp on your buddy profile). But you couldn’t ignore your MySpace IM or Yahoo Messenger, just in case your maybe-real Internet crushes wanted to chat. And you gotta keep up your nerd cred on IRC. Being popular was hard work!

Franz is a free app that combines more than a dozen different messaging services into a single window.

Now, though, technology has become more sophisticated and user-friendly. And as messaging has become a key component of how we do almost everything online, our interaction with chat is easy and understandable part of our everyday lives. Wait, no, that’s wrong. It’s the exact opposite. Messaging is more important, more powerful, and more versatile, and yet wrangling all of our constant conversations together is like herding cats. Except there are a thousand cats, and they’re all rabid and loud and running in every direction as fast as they possibly can while meowing horribly offensive things about all the other cats and giving you really important work deadlines. It’s not a pretty picture.

Years ago, apps like Adium, Meebo, and Trillian quickly became a crucial part of every Internet Socialite’s arsenal. All your accounts in one place, neatly organized, so you could remember who’s who and what’s where at all times. There’s nothing like that now, and there really couldn’t be; messaging apps are more than just text-sending protocols, they’re entire platforms. Every platform is different, and there’s no way to neatly combine them.

The best we can hope for is to at least bring all those disparate things into one place, which is exactly what Franz does. Franz is a new-ish free app for Mac, Windows, and Linux, that combines more than a dozen different messaging services into a single window. When you open Franz, you can instantly be logged into Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Skype, Hangouts, and more. The app itself is just a container—you’re basically opening web views of all the apps, tabbed in a single lovely window. By combining them into one place, though, you get a single set of notifications for all your services. A little red “1” will show up next to anything with an unread message, so you know at a glance what’s waiting for you. And best of all, you’re not stuck switching between a dozen browser tabs or a folder full of apps. Even though you don’t, it feels like you have just one messaging app. It’s just Franz.

Franz isn’t a perfect, universal messaging solution. It’s not Adium 2.0. But it’s the closest thing we’re probably ever going to get. As the messaging ecosystem metastasizes and becomes the universal interface for how we do everything, easy access to our many tools is much more realistic than trying to build a single Megazord Messenger that encompasses them all. And besides, this might be better anyway. You get Slack the way it’s meant to be used, and with a single key command you’re jumping into Facebook’s most complete vision of Messenger. Until we get that universal messaging app that would make life so much easier, this is definitely the next best thing.

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This week at the NAB Show, the annual trade show for people who make video content, virtual reality is going to be everywhere. Condition One, a startup-slash-studio that was earlier to VR filmmaking than most, is making one of the show’s early announcements: a new VR camera called the Bison. This 360 rig is made for the kind of run-and-gun documentary shooting the company’s known for. Or at least the closest you can get to that given the current state of VR tech. It won’t be for sale, but it will be part of the company’s toolkit as it continues to make VR movies—so if you want footage from the camera, you have to hire Condition One to shoot it.

Here’s the rundown on the camera itself: The Bison is named for the first thing Condition One founder Danfung Dennis shot with the initial prototype. It’s comprised of 16 cameras, and all together they’re capable of shooting full 360-degree video with full 3D audio. It’ll produce 5.7K resolution video, at up to 48 frames per second, for up to two hours on one battery charge. It’s made of a rugged aluminum, and has an intense cooling system to keep it running even in the hot sun. Even the tripod is made of carbon fiber, so you can’t destroy this thing if you try. The camera’s minimum focusing distance is two feet, which makes Dennis particularly proud. “We’ve been really focused on creating presence in the near field,” he says. “To have subjects within your arm’s reach, to have close subjects to you… You really feel presence.”

Danfung Dennis.Condition One

The Bison falls somewhere in the middle of the VR camera field, such as it exists right now. There are solutions like HypeVR, which amounts to an impossibly expensive and cumbersome set of super-high-end RED cameras rigged together for VR. Google has Jump, GoPro has Odyssey, Facebook has Surround 360. (Bison, by the way, is probably closer to Surround 360 than any other single product.) They’re all big, expensive, and mostly made of a bunch of individual cameras stitched together. On the other side are the super-simple 360 cameras, like the Ricoh Theta. Those aren’t pro cameras by any stretch. Condition One seems to intend the Bison to be sort of the DSLR for VR; it’s more compact and easier to use, but absolutely capable of making something Oscar-worthy.

Part of Condition One’s journey has involved learning what works, and what doesn’t, in virtual reality filmmaking. Before getting into VR, Dennis was a longtime war photographer, so he tends to like to run and gun. But moving around is not exactly a delightful viewing experience in VR—it’s more likely to make you sick. So even if it were possible (and it really isn’t), it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to try and make a shoulder-mounted or hand-held VR camera. But the Bison’s close, at only 12.5 pounds. More important, it’s rugged enough to go the places you’ll want to put it; Dennis has watched as bison, jaguars, and (in a less-frightening shoot) monarch butterflies inspected the camera while he watched from afar. The remote trigger works from a half-mile away, too, so you can keep yourself out of your spherical shot and still get the footage you need.

As they worked, Dennis says, they found that the hardest part wasn’t the shooting—it was the stitching. Taking a bunch of cameras, and putting all their images together in a way that looks right, is hard and intensive work. The best solutions will make everything seamless, literally and figuratively, and making their own hardware made it easier to build the necessary software too. Now they’re trying to figure out what kinds of VR movies people want to watch. And where to put them so people can see them. And how to make money. Right now, in VR, if you solve one problem all you get is a hundred new ones to figure out.

New Google Phone Cases Take Customization to the Next Level

Google

More than just about anything you own, your smartphone represents you. Your photos, your communications, your work, your leisure activities, your nudes, everything’s in this one rectangular piece of metal and glass. You smartphone, therefore you are.

Google is pushing the boundaries of what a case can do to and with your phone, and is obviously committed to a deep sense of personalization and identity with phones.

As our phones come to contain our personalities, a good case becomes all the more important. Not only does it keep your phone from shattering on the sidewalk and taking all your memories and plans with it, it turns your phone into something that looks and feels more unique. More personal. More you.

Google’s taking the idea even further, introducing a new Live Case Creator tool that lets you turn a point on a map or a photo into a phone case you can slap on the back of your Nexus 6, 6P, or 5X. You go to the creator website, and upload a photo or use the Google Maps interface to select a location. Then, position it on the case however you want, select among Google’s many filters, which add color or transmogrify your photo into an abstract art piece. Confirm it, buy it, and Google prints and ships you a case of your very own.

Maybe coolest of all, these Live Cases skin the wallpaper of your phone to match your new case. If you go with the map, you can turn your wallpaper into a similarly colored, moving map of where you are right now. If you choose a picture, you can make an album of other shots for your phone to style and switch between automatically. There’s also a button on the back of each case that will launch your phone’s camera (if you choose a photo case) or find you nearby places in Maps (if you pick a location).

Google first hinted at plans like this when it worked with Skrillex on a handful of customized phone cases. Googlers say they were blown away by the response to that project, and that people wanted more. The company’s pushing the boundaries of what a case can do to and with your phone, and is obviously committed to a deep sense of personalization and identity with phones. It’s always been part of Google’s vision for Android, right down to the tagline: be together. Not the same. Maybe before long picking a phone case won’t be like choosing clothes from the rack, finding the garment that fits you most closely. It’ll be more like making your own clothes, and getting it exactly right.

Your Essential Guide to Buying Comically Giant and Tiny Things Online

Mini Materials

If the rumors are correct, Apple is bringing back a smaller iPhone. This makes sense. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all smartphone or even a two-sizes-fit-all smartphone. Some people want a phone that fits in the pocket of their skinny jeans. Other people have larger-sized skinny jeans. A third group of slacks-wearing people want a phone the size of a skateboard deck.

The same idea holds true for almost everything. Some people want big versions of things that are supposed to be small. Others want small versions of things that are supposed to be big. All of this is possible. On my desk right now, there’s an oversized pencil, an undersized building, a miniature hockey player with a disproportionately large hockey stick, and a “King Size” Sharpie.

Here is a photograph of these objects taken with my phone, which is the size of a skateboard deck:

Giant pencil for scale. Tim Moynihan/WIRED

More often than not, things that aren’t their appropriate size are whimsical and fun. On occasion, they’re even thought-provoking. Examining an object that isn’t normal-size lets you appreciate its form or design detached from its function. This will help you forget about taxes for a little while.

Alas, acquiring miniature and oversized objects isn’t as easy as walking into a store and heading to the “giant” or “tiny” section. Luckily, there are dedicated online outlets for each of these retail needs.

But those are all readymade products. If you want to create your own miniature projects, cruise by Mini Materials. It’s like a Home Depot on the island of Blefuscu: miniature cinder blocks, shipping pallets, bricks, and two-by-fours. There are also tiny packets of concrete mix and minuscule buckets of mortar.

Finally: A Kit That Turns a Banana Into a Game Controller

Makey Makey

What if you could play a videogame with a banana? Or a drum machine with a burrito? MaKey MaKey lets you do exactly that—and more.

MaKey Makey turns everyday objects into digital touchpads for your computer. Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum designed it while they were in grad school at MIT. Inspired by the maker movement, they wanted to create an open-ended way of getting people to think creatively about how kids interact with our increasingly networked world. The result is a clever kit that makes a controller of literally anything that conducts electricity.

“Makey Makey is a device for allowing people to plug the real world into their computers,” said David Ten Have of JoyLabz, which produces the kit. “We want people to be able to see the world as their construction kit. And basically the way MaKey MaKey works is that it pretends to be a USB keyboard.”

Each kit comes with a circuit board—the heart of the kit—a set of alligator clips, and a USB cable that plugs into your computer. The USB provides power to the circuit board, and the alligator clips link the board to any object that conducts electricity. Turns out, a lot of things conduct electricity. Food. Plants. Play-Doh. Even you.“We were shooting for creating a product that had an incredibly low floor for participation, but an incredibly high ceiling for expression,” said Ten Have. “We’re seeing things made as simple as a banana piano and as advanced as measuring tools for chemistry labs, for instance.”

The possibilities seem endless. Kids can turn their art into an instrument. Connect the alligator clips to people’s hands to make a human drum machine. People have transformed a trash can into a calculator and a slice of pizza into a game controller. Your garbage can is full of new controllers.

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Fresh air can be harder to come by than you might think. If you have pets or you live in a city or it’s cold outside, you are almost certainly breathing air that is full of contaminants that can make you sick, and even trigger asthma and allergies.

You can’t do much about the air you breathe at work or on the train, but you can control the air inside your home. The problem is that most air purifiers are ugly, loud, and some even omit ozone—which can be a serious lung irritant. Airmega tackles all of those problems with the Smart Air Purifier, which is (reasonably) attractive, quiet, and doesn’t spew toxins.

Airmega

It’s also a smart appliance that’s actually smart. The Airmega keeps you abreast of the air quality in your place, and an app (of course it’s got an app) lets you know if the air’s gotten funky while you’re on the road. If so, simply activate it remotely and come home to fresh air. A handy automatic mode lets the purifier turn itself on whenever the air gets stale, and an eco-friendly mode shuts it off after 10 minutes.

The machine has filters on two sides, so it inhales more bad air and exhales more good. This thing can renew the air in a 1,560 square foot space twice an hour. Airmega claims the carbon and HEPA filters remove 99.97 percent of the junk in the air, and the app (and a sensor on top of the device) tell you when it’s time to change them. Airmega says they’re good for a year.

These things aren’t cheap, though. The smaller model, the 300S, will cost $749 when it’s available through Airmega and Amazon later this month. The larger 400S will run you $849. But then, how much are your lungs worth?

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A little over three years ago, the Popslate presented an intriguing idea: What if a case could turn the back of your phone into an E Ink display? Like a lot of first-generation, crowdsourced products, the original didn’t quite live up to the promise. Popslate 2, though, looks like a very promising course correction.

The original Popslate, which finally materialized last spring, worked as advertised. Its limitations, though, made it difficult to justify as an everyday case. It charged with a different cable than the iPhone 6 it was designed to fit, and at launch only displayed still images pushed from an app on the front of the phone. It eventually used IFTTT to prompt screen updates without manual intervention, but even that required a little bit more digital elbow grease—and a little less functionality—than might justify the added bulk and expense.

Popslate 2 doesn’t just promise to address these issues; it actively adds plenty of functionality as well. It’s an evolution, not merely refinement.

To start, Popslate 2 not only ditched microUSB for the Apple-preferred Lightning cable, the case itself provides a backup battery that can add up to nine hours of talk time (or four hours of browsing) to your iPhone. It manages to do so while still reducing the thickness versus the original Popslate by nearly half. The display itself has improved, as well. Still “shatterproof,” it’s now 200 dpi versus the previous version’s 115, and has a pleasant-looking curve to it.

There’s also an easy way to navigate the latest Popslate on the display itself. Three capacitive touch buttons at the bottom of the display let you switch between apps and scroll through content.

More important than the hardware upgrades, though, are the software smarts Popslate has added. Rather than lean on static images and clumsy IFTTT integration, Popslate now pulls directly from a handful of useful apps to maintain a dynamic display. You still need to download and use the Popslate app to customize your black-and-white rear display, but your options have expanded.

“We are leveraging sources with APIs and pulling that content straight into the Popslate app,” says co-founder Greg Moon. “Planned integrations for launch are: NYT, Twitter, Accuweather, and Google Calendar. We are also putting together partnerships around sports and stocks, which likely will also be part of the launch.”

Moon says the company determined what apps and areas to focus on based on people’s IFTTT usage on the original Popslate. In addition to the news, weather, and social functions it has already has—and the sports and stocks to come—you can expect to see wearable and IoT data apps at some point as well. Popslate 2 also comes with a Wallet function that lets you display items with bar or QR codes, like boarding passes or concert tickets.

That’s not to say everything is perfect. While the ideal app might seem to be Kindle—reading E Ink beats reading on an LCD display any day—you won’t find Amazon’s e-reading software here. You can use Popslate 2 as an e-reader, but currently only through Project Gutenberg, a free e-book resource whose catalog features mostly public domain classics. While Moon wouldn’t confirm if there were plans for Kindle down the road, he’s confident that the e-book selection will expand.

“We are also in discussions with additional e-book providers,” says Moon. “Unfortunately we can’t disclose the parties at present for confidentiality purposes. As a result, our e-book sources and supported formats (including EPUB) will expand substantially after launch.”

The “after launch” part is the other small cause for concern. Like its forebear, Popslate 2 is a crowdfunded project. But while it’s generally healthy to be skeptical of Indiegogo concepts, the fact that the Popslate team has already delivered once offers at least some confidence in the second generation. It’s expected to ship this July, at a cost of $149 (or $69 for early backers).

A second E Ink display isn’t a new idea; a company called Yotaphone has even built one into the handset itself. But if Popslate 2 delivers the improvements it’s promising, it will have made a pretty good product pretty great.

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Considering that the average smartphone user takes out their phone more than 220 times a day, you might want to invest in a nice case. Wood is generally prettier than plastic, and while there are a variety of wooden phone cases to choose from, most of them have some visible plastic or rubber that totally distracts from that outdoorsy vibe you’re going for.

Luckily, the Woodline case for iPhone 6 and 6s is made by Pad & Quill, has a 100 percent wooden exterior. OK, it’s not all wood: Unless it was a quarter-inch thick, a totally wooden phone case would probably crack when dropped. The outer wooden shell is filled with Aramid fibers, the same stuff used on drumheads and jet engine enclosures.

If you prefer keeping your phone in your pocket, the Woodline is ultra-thin so you can easily do so. Seriously: According to Pad & Quill, it’s as thin as a dime, so it’s definitely not going add any noticeable bulk.

The cases are all handcrafted out of real wood, so each one looks different and is engraved by the carpenter who made it. The cases come in four different types of wood: American Cherry, Rosewood, Zebra, or American Walnut, so you can pick the grain that most suits your daily grind. The case is currently available for preorder and will begin shipping next week.

The Latest Raspberry Pi Gets Wi-Fi Powers, Keeps $35 Price

Matt Richardson

Raspberry Pi, the computer that literally fits in the palm of your hand, isn’t for everyone. It comes with circuitry exposed, without a case, input method, or, until now, much in the way of connectivity. With the addition of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, though, Raspberry Pi 3 comes closer to a pocketable PC for everyone.

The third generation of Raspberry Pi in its four years of existence, Raspberry Pi 3 integrates 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. Previously, you had to employ some dongle magic to add that functionality.

The only other big upgrade—there are, after all, only so many components to upgrade—is the processor. Where previously sat a 900MHz 32-bit, quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU now sits a 1.2GHz 64-bit, quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU. If those numbers mean nothing to you, just know that it’s about 10x the performance of the original Raspberry Pi, and over 50 percent better than the previous iteration.

Otherwise, the Pi remains largely the same. It’s roughly the same size and shape as generations past, aside from some minor component shuffling to accommodate the antenna that allows for its newfound wireless connectivity. Most importantly, it’s holding on to that $35 price. For the cost of a few decent deli sandwiches, you can still own a fully functional (and now, even more so) pint-sized computer.

It’s important, too, that Raspberry Pi keep building on its success. No shortage of micro-computer competitors have sprung up in the years since the original Pi’s introduction, some of which, like the Arduino 101, have already either promised or delivered an advanced feature set. And for three or four times the price of a Pi 3, consumers can opt for a “PC on a Stick” dongle, like Lenovo’s Ideacentre Stick or Intel’s Compute Stick, that offers the convenience of a dongle form factor, and the ability to plug directly into a monitor.

Nobody’s done it better for longer, though, than the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It still takes a little bit of know-how to fit it into your life, but one of the best bargains in tech is even more so now.

Here Are the First Oculus Rift-Ready PCs You Can Buy

Oculus Rift

Today Oculus Rift unveiled three new VR-ready PCs that excited, ready-to-be-completely-immersed gamers can pre-order in one week. The new PC towers, from Dell, Alienware, and ASUS, are designed to handle the powerful new VR graphics, which take a massive amount of rendering power to bring games to life in your headset.

To no one’s surprise, they don’t come cheap. Expect to pay between $1,000 and $2,500 for a Oculus Rift-ready PC—but if you were one of the enthusiasts that pre-ordered Rift, you may be eligible for a discount. And if you already own a super computer, there’s a chance that it might already be Rift-friendly already. You can test with Oculus’s compatibility tool, which you have to download so it can scan your system’s current capabilities.

A traditional 1080p game requires 124 million shaded pixels per second to render the visualizations. Oculus Rift’s VR program needs about three times that rendering power. According to the company blog, a Rift runs at 2160x1200p on dual displays and requires somewhere in the range of 400 million shaded pixels per second. TL;DR, most computers are way too weak to run VR headsets.

So what will people will be able to do with their new VR-ready PCs? Well considering Facebook acquired Oculus Rift for $2 billion dollars last year, and keeping in mind that the platform now counts over one billion users, the company is certainly poised to do big things.

Day One Makes Keeping a Journal Delightfully Easy

Keeping a journal is a pain in the ass. It’s a scientifically-proven wonderful thing to do—to preserve your memories, explore your feelings, record the things you do and notice and care about—but it’s a lot of work to sit down every day and get your Dear Diary on. Day One has always cleverly skirted that hassle by turning a journal entry into something more like a splits counter on a stopwatch. The app takes your location, motion data, and more, and turns it into a snapshot of your life at any time you choose. How you fill it out—or don’t—with words, pictures, video, and whatever else, is then up to you.

The app’s been around for a few years for Mac and iPhone, but developer Bloom Built just released its first complete overhaul ever. The new Day One (insanely named Day One 2—yes, really) has a slicker design, a much bigger emphasis on photos, and a handful of new ways to filter your journal to see entries from a certain place or time or from a specific topic. You can even have multiple journals, in case you want to separate your obsessive cataloging of every book you read from your “feelsy” entries. The Mac app is a great browser for your old entries, and the iPhone app is well-tuned to make saving and creating those entries really easy. Just 3D-touch to start a new entry, snap or upload a photo, add a caption, and poof: You’re a journaler.

The app is also unusually good at giving you control over your privacy and data. You can set a passcode, and at any time export all your data to PDF or a plain text file. It’s a lot more secure than hiding your journal underneath your mattress. Stomaching the price might be a little tough ($9.99 for the iPhone app, $39.99 for Mac, though if you buy right now it’s half-off), but that’s the hardest part. Everything else about keeping a journal will suddenly be a lot easier.

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More so than any kind of modern technology, digital cameras have pushed retro designs into the mainstream. Fujifilm, Nikon, Panasonic, and Olympus all have their own throwback shooters—and Leica has never really strayed from its timeless designs.

It’s not just a gimmick, either. In the world of photography, retro style is sensible: Unlike today’s sleek, touchscreen-controlled phones and tablets, experienced photographers want to have all the knobs, buttons, and dials they need at their fingertips.

The fetching Olympus PEN-F is the company’s latest old-school camera, and it bears the same name and stylistic touches as Olympus’ 35mm film SLR cameras from the early- to mid-1960s. While a tribute to a 35mm film camera would suggest the PEN-F has a full-frame sensor, that isn’t the case. It’s built around a Micro Four-Thirds sensor like the other cameras in the PEN series.

This sensor’s brand new, though. It’s a 20-megapixel imager, bolstered by Olympus’ excellent five-axis stabilization system. It also does the same cool things as Olympus’ recent OMD series cameras. There’s the “Hi Res” mode found in the OMD E-M5 Mark II, a tripod-optimized feature that moves the sensor around to capture a 50-megapixel shot. There’s also the focus-bracketing feature found in the E-M5 II, E-M10, and E-M1.

The PEN series usually bears lesser specs than Olympus’ higher-end OMD lineup, but not this one. The PEN-F is basically an OMD-level camera in a throwback body. It captures continuous shots at a rate of up to 20fps, has a lightning-fast autofocus system, boasts shutter speeds up to 1/16,000 of a second, and shoots RAW. Video capture tops out 1080p at 60fps, although you’re able to record time-lapse video in 4K at 5fps.

For sure, the most compelling thing about this camera is its body. There’s a distinct dial on the front that lets you toggle between monochrome, color, and filter effects. Up top, machined aluminum dials handle mode selections, shutter, and exposure compensation, while a heavy-duty scroll wheel on the back lets you dial everything in.

This is also the first PEN camera with an eye-level viewfinder; the others only have a live-view LCD screen. And it’s no half-assed EVF, as its OLED display has 2.36 million dots of resolution. But there’s still a 3-inch flip-and swivel touchscreen on board, and like most cameras these days, Wi-Fi connectivity is built in.

Those OMD-level specs in a PEN body come with a price to match, and you’ll have to wait about a month to start shooting with it. The PEN-F will be available in early March, priced at $1,200 for the body only. It’s compatible with Micro Four-Thirds system lenses—which have a bigger-than-most crop factor of 2x.

The Perfect Phone For Germaphobes

KyoceraYour phone is disgusting. I’m sorry, but it’s true. It’s covered in germs and… well, and worse. It also stays dirty, because you never clean it, because doing so would ruin it.

Tricky situation! Tricky and gross. It’s something that the Kyocera Digno Rafre looks to remedy. The Digno Rafre, available in Japan, has pretty basic specs for a smartphone; it starts at 16GB storage, has 2GB RAM, a 13MP rear and 2MP front-facing camera. It runs Android 5.1. None of that’s enough to turn heads. For neat freaks, though, or those nonplussed by the thought of carrying around millions of bacteria in their pocket every day, it has one crucial advantage: you can wash it with soap.

That’s more impressive than it may sound. It’s hard enough to find a waterproof smartphone today, and until now impossible to find one that can survive the rigors of a rigorous good scrubbing. In fact, even the Digno Rafre has its limits; Kyocera encourages the use of foam-based soap, rather than potentially injurious bars.

Kyocera reportedly managed the feat by finding a better way to seal the device. The Digno Rafre’s display also works when wet, meaning it may be the first handset targeted specifically at the bubble bath set.

The phone’s only available in Japan (for $467), and Kyocera has indicated they don’t plan to sell it elsewhere. Until they change their minds—or someone else offers a washproof smartphone stateside—you can always opt for constantly wearing gloves, or obsessively washing your hands.

Samsung Gear VR Headset Is Finally Available for Pre-Order

Samsung

Starting today, you can preorder the consumer version of the Gear VR headset for $99. Sure, Samsung’s headset has been around for awhile, at least for developers and lucky beta testers who got their hands on the Innovator Edition. But this is the first time the Oculus Rift-powered headset has been sold to regular consumers. The devices will ship November 20.

This isn’t just some new packaging slapped on the earlier model: According to Oculus, the official Gear VR headset is 19 percent lighter and “features improved ergonomics,” like a new touchpad that should make it easier to use. The best news: Gear VR is going to work with more Samsung phones, and there are lots of new games to use it with. If you have a Galaxy S6 Edge, S6, Note 5, or S6 Edge+, you’re in the clear (though the last two will require a carrier software update). And perhaps the most exciting new title on the horizon is Land’s End, a visually stunning game set in an ancient civilization from the makers of Monument Valley.

The Gear is just one of a few compelling VR headsets, but it’s managed to situate itself nicely for user adoption by aggressively partnering with various media outlets to experiment with consumer VR experiences. Already we’ve watched NBA games and political debates. Oh yeah, and it’s just under 100 bucks.

This Wallet Doubles as an iPhone Charger

Nomad

We’ve all done the “pocket pat down” to check we have our phones and wallets before leaving the house. But even if you remember to bring your phone with you, it’ll be dead weight if you forget to charge it. Sure, you could always bring a spare charger in your bag, but if you like to go out with only the clothes on your back you know that pocket space is a limited resource.

Nomad‘s new Wallet for iPhone might be able to help all the bagless chumps out. As its name suggests, the Wallet is a battery pack for your iPhone—but it’s no bulky charger: It’s no thicker than a standard billfold wallet. It measures in at 95mm (height) x 125mm (width) x 25mm (max thickness), so feel free to stuff it with your disposable income and those fro-yo stamp cards. Nomad was able to keep these dimensions by placing the skinny, yet high powered, 2400 mAh battery along the spine of the Wallet. That’s enough juice to fully charge an iPhone 6s.

When the Wallet’s battery is depleted, it can be recharged by any microUSB charger. Flashing indicator lights will tell you how much energy is stored in the Wallet, and when you are ready to connect it to your iPhone, you can un-sheath its built in Lightning cable. Considering that it can hold all these electronics, your cash, and your cards without looking like a lunchbox, that’s some serious space optimization.

The Wallet for iPhone can be pre-ordered now for $80 ($20 off retail), and is expected to ship November 15.

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I’ve watched the teaser video for the RoBoHoN a few times now, and I still don’t know what to make of it. Sharp, who made it, calls it “a phone in human shape, a phone that you feel like talking to.” The name itself is a wonky portmanteau of robot and phone. It can be held up next to your ear just like any other phone. Unlike any other phone, though, it is also a talking robot helper projector music toy assistant man. Sure!

In the three-minute video, the RoBoHoN plays all sorts of roles. It waves happily at you when your alarm goes off, sits on your car dash, remembers to buy you more toothpaste in a squeaky anime voice, and then bends over at the waist to point its built-in projector at a table to show you photos from your boyfriend while he tells you how much he loves you while you cry, apparently? You can dress RoBoHoN up in a bunch of different accessories, including Swarovski crystals. He’s mostly designed to be talked to, but he has a touchscreen on his back in case you need to touch him.

On one hand, this is definitely the worst phone ever. You wear it by a lanyard around your neck, the screen is small and bad, and I mean, come on, the thing is huge and unwieldy and you look like you’re holding a toy to your face.

But the robot? The robot seems pretty great. RoBoHoN uses facial recognition to tell individual people to smile for the camera. He (I think it’s a he? I’ve been saying “he” but it’s entirely possible that RoBoHoN exists outside of gender) will help you remember to do stuff; he’ll help your kid learn to walk; he’ll play music and literally lead the dance party. He can sit, walk, hail cabs, and do a thousand other crazy things.

The concept video looks like an out-there student film, or a live-action cut of something Pixar might be working on. But Sharp swears RoBoHoN is a real thing, set for launch next year. In the inevitable army of the robot takeover, this is the one that eats your smartphone. And dammit if it’s not just the cutest little everything machine.

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There’s absolutely no reason that your every day computer shouldn’t look like an F-22 cockpit simulation. That seems to be the logic behind HP’s new 34-inch Curved All-in-One, an impossibly long display that can comfortably accommodate more tabs than is healthy.

The shape’s not new to HP; the company already sells a 34-inch display that looks basically identical. The resolution isn’t as eye-popping as, say, a 5K iMac, but a 5K iMac doesn’t curve, or cover nearly three feet of ground, diagonally.

Now, though, HP has stuffed a computer inside that display, in a glorious act of why not? Inside, you’ll find substantial enough guts: The $1,799 base model comes with the latest Core i5 processor and 8GB of memory, and you can upgrade to as much as 2TB of storage, 16GB RAM, and a discrete Nvidia GTX 960A graphics card. All of which is to say it’ll do pretty much whatever you might need it to.

Most importantly, though, it is gigantic; a multi-monitor set-up that requires just one glorious monitor. It’s even, one might venture, innovative, at a time that the PC industry desperately needs innovation. It’ll be available Nov. 8, and while it’s obviously intended for those with specific needs and muscular budget, the rest of us can at least appreciate a heaping desktop helping of eye candy when we see it.

Keurig Kold Trades Coffee Pods for Soda Pop

Keurig Kold, a countertop soda-making machine that Keurig hopes will expand its appeal beyond coffee. Keurig, best known for its pod-based, countertop coffee dispensers, is branching out. The new Keurig Kold provides a chilled counterpoint to the company’s previous models, serving up sodas from name-brand pod providers like Coca-Cola and Snapple.

If that sounds a bit like SodaStream, that’s because it is, although there are a few key differences. The most important of which, for those who’ve grown weary of carbon dioxide refills, is that Kold uses “Karbonator beads” embedded in its pods to generate CO2. That means no canisters, and no confusion over just how many bubbles to add.

That also means the Kold should be equally adept at non-carbonated beverages, including teas, sports drinks, and flavored water; in addition to its partners, Keurig will be offering its own brands in those categories. Regardless of fizz, as you’d expect from the name, the drinks also come out, well, cold, thanks to what Keurig describes as an “aerospace-inspired thermal transfer system.”

While it’s hitting shelves today—or more specifically, hitting Keurig’s retail website; it will roll out to stores in select cities later this month—Kold made its debut at an analyst conference this past March, and has been in development the past five years. The long rollout signifies just how important Kold is to Keurig; the company’s currently trading at about a third of its 52-week high due to quickly fading sales of its K-Cup-based coffee products, a decline that led the company to announce a 5 percent workforce reduction in August. Kold represents its best chance at a pick-me-up. Then again, Kold’s most obvious competition, SodaStream, has been in an extended sales free fall, calling into question whether there’s currently a significant market for home carbonation machines in the first place.

The device faces other challenges, as well. A coffee pod’s prime appeal is ease of use; it’s obviously faster and less fussy than parsing out grinds for a traditional drip coffee maker. Making that same case for Kold could be tricky, since it’s competing against the simple act of popping the tab on a can, or twisting the top of a bottle. And whatever convenience it does offer doesn’t come cheap; Kold comes with an MSRP of $370, with pods costing between $4.50 and $5.00 for a pack of four. Each pod produces a single 8-ounce drink, making your countertop cola more expensive than the grocery store equivalent even before the sunk cost of the machine itself.

Push-button drink production has a demonstrable appeal; whether that translates from hot to cold depends on one’s counter space, pod appeal, and single-serve obsession.

This Keyboard Turns Tablets Into Typewriters … For $330

QwerkytoysThe tablet industry is still going strong, but if we can take away anything from the Microsoft Surface and iPad Pro releases, it’s that some people really want keyboards to go with their tablets. Built-in touch screen keyboards simply aren’t enough for writing anything longer than a text, and they take up valuable screen space. The thin screen-protector-like keyboards that Microsoft and Apple make are great for portability, but they don’t offer the tactile feel that desktop keyboards do. If you want a keyboard that feels awesome (and isn’t that portable) what better place to look for inspiration than a good old-fashion typewriter?

The folks at Qwerkytoys have created the Qwerkywriter, a tablet keyboard that mimics the look and feel of a typewriter. Even though the Qwerkywriter looks old fashioned, there’s plenty of modern tech baked inside. The keyboard pairs with devices via Bluetooth, so even though it has a dock that fits all sorts of tablets, it can be paired with smartphones or even desktop computers. Additionally, that macro return bar isn’t just for show: By default, it doubles as an enter key, but can also be programmed to render up to five characters.

The Qwerkywriter started as a Kickstarter campaign, but since it already met its goal of $90,000, you can pre-order it now for $329. The pre-orders won’t ship out until October or November, but in the meantime you can listen to the satisfying clicks of the Qwerky’s keys in action.

This is dangerous, and you should not ever try it. In fact, you can hear the stand-up scooter crack during the initial squat, and again during the fourth rep. Somehow, the contraption held together during the entire feat of strength and balance, and that wasn’t the only danger to Martyn’s safety. Fall backward, and risk a concussion from the back of your head smacking a solid steel bar. Fall forward, and risk your face being pinned to the floor by 315 pounds.

So never attempt this superhuman show of agility, even if you look like He-Man. Still, feel free to watch it repeatedly on the Internet to your heart’s desire.

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Logitech G is launching two new gaming headphones: the G633 and G933 Artemis Spectrum. They are the result of Logitech’s sound engineering team’s attempt to create a gaming headset that delivers audio comparable to top-shelf headphones. With patent pending Pro-G audio drivers and 7.1 Dolby surround sound, these headphones aim to immerse you into the game.

The two headphones look similar, with the G933 as the beefier big brother. The G933 includes a few more features than the G633, such as the ability to operate wirelessly and an additional audio input for sound mixing. But you’ll have to pay a little bit more to get these extras, as the G933 costs $200 versus the G633’s $150 price tag.

Regardless, the two both offer some cool customizable features. By downloading the Logitech Gaming Software, you are able to assign game macro functions to the headset’s three programmable G-keys. Additionally, you can use the software to adjust equalizer settings and set up sound profiles that best fit your acoustic preferences. On the other hand, some customizable features are just for fun, like the ability to change the RGB lighting to any color of your choosing.

Look out for the Logitech G633 and G933 Artemis Spectrum in October 2015.

Your Dreams of Using Nothing But Emoji Are Realized

Emoji Keyboard

While your smartphone is an easy conduit for all-emoji conversation, things get a little tough when you find yourself at a regular old laptop. Sure, keyboard shortcuts can get you there, but PC-made discussion is still dominated by… you know, words. Until now! Emoji Key is a set of stickers you can throw on top of your lettered keyboard. Then you just have to install the emoji keyboard on your laptop (the site includes instructions), and boom: You are typing in nothing but emoji. And yes, this would probably get confusing eventually.

Samsung Wants to Give you a Galaxy Phone for 30 Days, for $1

Samsung

In Samsung’s never-ending quest to take on the iPhone, it’s giving customers the chance to test drive one of its Galaxy phones (the S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, or Note 5) for 30 days for the low, low price of $1. If you’re an iPhone user who’s curious about the competition, now is the time to question your allegiance. You’ll get a month’s worth of data, and since it’s not like you have to hand your iPhone over to Samsung, you’ve essentially got two phones for a month. For a data hog, that’s not a bad deal.

Finally, Surfboards that Fight Sharks

Really, this should have become a standard a long time ago. According to Reuters, this surfer shelled out $390 to attach a device to his board that emits “an electronic force field that overpowers [sharks’] sensing organs.” Sounds like the best $390 he ever spent. There are couple of retailers installing these devices, including SurfSafe and SharkShield—check out this video from the former showing you how its done.

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